Podcast: Fannie and Freddie’s Conflicted Role in the Housing Market
Listen Now
Last week, following up on our detailed investigation with NPR into Freddie Mac and its operations, ProPublica’s Cora Currier wrote an explainer laying out Freddie and Fannie’s conflicted role in the housing market. She joins the podcast this week to share her findings and help us answer the question: So what do Freddie and Fannie actually do to help homeowners?
You can read Cora’s explainer on Freddie and Fannie as well as all her reporting for ProPublica here. And don’t forget to subscribe to ProPublica’s podcasts on iTunes.
Subscribe
Get Updates
Our Hottest Stories
- Donations to Scott Walker Flagged as Potential Fraud
- In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives
- Billion Dollar Bait & Switch: States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds
- Pardon Attorney Torpedoes Plea for Presidential Mercy
- Patient Died at New York VA Hospital After Alarm Was Ignored
- Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala
- Introducing the ProPublica Patient Harm Community on Facebook
- Built for a Simpler Era, OSHA Struggles When Tower Climbers Die
- Got Student Loans? Share Your Documents With Us
- Remember Stuxnet? Why the U.S. is Still Vulnerable
- Donations to Scott Walker Flagged as Potential Fraud
- Pardon Attorney Torpedoes Plea for Presidential Mercy
- In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives
- Air Force Pilots Balk at Flying the World’s Most Expensive Fighter Jet
- Patient Died at New York VA Hospital After Alarm Was Ignored
- Watchdog Group Calls for Probe of Lobbyists Behind Congressional Trip to Taiwan
- Billion Dollar Bait & Switch: States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds
- Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala
- Broadcasters Sue to...Block Transparency
- Happy Graduation! Here's The Best, Most Depressing Journalism on Student Debt
#MuckReads
#MuckReads is an ongoing collection of watchdog reporting. Anyone can contribute by tweeting recommendations using the hashtag #MuckReads (or emailing us).
When it came to pensions, state officials looked out for No. 1
Chicago Tribune
Cushy pensions for IL lawmakers from "a long line of pension provisions written by lawmakers for lawmakers" http://t.co/cZVCvnsq #muckreads
USDA Is a Tough Collector When Mortgages Go Bad
Wall Street Journal
#muckreads RT @NickTimiraos: USDA offers no-money-down mortgages. But even after foreclosure, it can garnish wages http://t.co/5jEaEoow








2 comments
Wolf Bogacz
Feb. 8, 4:19 p.m.
Please remember to include the MP3 as an enclosure to the RSS, rather than draw us back here for the download.
Gail Burke
Feb. 9, 3:12 p.m.
Sorry, folks you are also a front for the “elite” making us think you are doing something—or something is being done—but not so much. I wrote you a long time ago about the fellow running the “Keep Your Home Calif.” program who has conflicts of interest huge enough to drive the Goodyear Blimp thru—and you haven’t done a thing about it. KYHC if funded by the US Treasury “Hardest Hit” fund and is helping few but the sole source contractors who stamp “no” on the applications. Have a complaint? Yup the same contractor handles their own complaints. Want to appeal a decision? Yup—same folks who denied the request also audit themselves. Who supervises them? Yup, the guy with conflicts of interest that you can drive a bus thru (he works for the Calif. Housing Fin. Agency and is “Program Mgr” for KYHC). If you contact him to complain, he sends you to his “contractors” handling the entire $2 billion program. Just the fact one contractor has so much responsibility is a red flag even without the conflicted State officer running the show (show me the money—for political cronies). So any organization worth its salt would have been on this when I first reported it to you 6 months ago. Even tho you can do what you want, your actions—inactions—on this biggie show me who you really work for. I feel sorry for the homeless folks who are sending you donations—unemployment and SS checks. Pitiful. Gail Burke